Salmon in mass breakout after fire melts Huon Aquaculture pen in southern Tasmania

Fifty-thousand Tasmanian farmed salmon have made a dash for freedom after a rare fire in a commercial aquaculture enclosure off the island’s coast.

Huon Aquaculture said the fire broke out early this morning, melting part of the pen and allowing the fish to give the company the slip.

“The fire damaged approximately a third of a pen, burning through and melting the pen infrastructure above and just below the waterline,” the company said in a statement.

Company chief executive Peter Bender said in 35 years of fish farming he had never had an electrical fire on a fish pen and was “baffled” as to what had caused it.

“We are not ruling anything out at this early stage,”…